A positive Ofsted report shows Norfolk's agricultural college is "improving rapidly", said its principal - but more still needs to be done to complete its recovery.

Easton College, formerly part of Easton and Otley College, merged with City College Norwich at the start of 2020 following two successive "inadequate" ratings from Ofsted inspectors.

But its fortunes are changing as part of the City College Norwich group, whose overall effectiveness was rated as "good" this week.

The new Ofsted report praises the "ambitious curriculum that ensures high-quality training for students and apprentices, particularly those with high needs."

But it also highlights where improvements still need to be made, adding: "At Easton college, the quality of teaching is not yet consistently good."

Principal Corrienne Peasgood said the report was a testament to the hard work of staff, students and governors to turn around the failing rural college.

And she praised the farming industry's involvement in helping modernise the curriculum and recruit the right tutors to continue the improvement.

"We are definitely moving in the right direction," she said. "We have obviously been hampered by the pandemic, so the improvements that have been made have been absolutely tremendous.

"Firstly, the industry and farmers were incredibly helpful in their challenge to us pre-merger.

"Understandably they were concerned about a general further education college taking over specialist land-based education provision.

"But organisations like the Royal Norfolk Agricultural Association, National Farmers' Union and Clan Trust have worked alongside us to bring that industry expertise to the expertise that we already have in improving teaching and learning.

"We have made the first steps in modernising the curriculum in order for it to provide the young people that the industry needs, but now we have these basic building blocks in place we need to push that even further to address things like sustainability, water management and environmental concerns.

"With the practical lessons, Ofsted inspectors noticed that the teachers had adapted their teaching effectively to meet the differing needs of students, but the next bit of work is to expand that into the theory and classroom lessons.

"Most of the teaching positions are now filled. We still have some vacancies, so having an Ofsted result like this makes it much easier to recruit into a college that is improving rapidly."

The report also praises teachers who "have now eradicated poor health and safety practices" at Easton, which Mrs Peasgood said were "mainly around housekeeping and basic compliance, as opposed to teaching the highest standards that the industry would expect of us."